1. Field Trauma
In many situations, an individual may require urgent medical care in the field, e.g., in a military combat situation, in a civilian disaster recovery situation, etc. And in many of these situations, it may be necessary to provide immediate access to the vasculature of the patient (e.g., intravenous, intra-arterial and/or intra-osseous vasculature) in primitive field conditions so that appropriate fluids (e.g., saline, plasma, medications, etc.) may be administered to the patient. For the purposes of the present invention, primitive field conditions may be considered to be those where pure water may not be available for cleansing, antiseptic solutions may not be available and/or sterile supplies are limited (such as frequently occurs in military combat situations, civilian disaster recovery situations, etc.).
In these situations, immediate access to the vasculature of the patient is generally achieved by cutting through the skin of the patient and then installing a vascular connector (e.g., a catheter) which provides direct access to the vasculature of the patient. Since infection is a major concern during any procedure which opens the skin and directly accesses the vasculature of a patient, and since infection is a particularly serious concern where such access must be achieved in primitive field conditions, it is desirable to do everything possible to reduce the risk of infection. Among other things, ideally, the skin of the patient should be sterilized prior to incision, and the vascular connector (e.g., the catheter) should be resistant to catheter-related infection.
2. The Desirability of a Field Sterilizer and Vascular Connector Kit
It will be appreciated that where an individual requires urgent medical care in the field, and where such urgent medical care requires immediate access to the vasculature of the patient in primitive field conditions, it would be desirable to provide a pre-packaged kit containing a field sterilizer and a vascular connector, where the vascular connector is resistant to catheter-related infection.
However, certain challenges are encountered when trying to provide a field sterilizer and vascular connector kit.
3. Disinfections Systems
It is known to disinfect water (and other liquids), gases (including air), devices and/or object surfaces, etc. using ultraviolet (UV) radiation and/or disinfectants.
In many situations, it can be highly desirable to disinfect a target medium using UV radiation. For this reason, the present invention is configured to use UV radiation to disinfect the skin of a patient.